This Game of Murder: A Film Noir Classic

[Miltone]

For Chanaud, as we have time …

A Moment of Terror …

Veronica Chase opens her eyes, fear gripping her deep into her soul. She lays extremely still for a moment just listening. Then she hears the sound again, like someone walking on the floor.

Instantly she thinks of the notorious cat burglar, the one everyone has heard about on the news, who had been terrorizing his victims with an axe. She sits up and reaches for the gun under her pillow.

A rasping sound comes from the hall window; then she hears footsteps outside the bedroom door. She holds her breath, her eyes straining in the darkness, her hand gripping the gun tighter.

Suddenly the door opens. A shadowy figure stands there, a glittering blade in his hand. Veronica screams and pulls the trigger—setting off a chain of events that enmeshes her deeper and deeper in a vicious game of murder and violence.

Dirk Marshall

OCC: For 11 years Dirk Marshall has had to hide his emotions for Veronica Chase, for after all, she is another man’s wife. But suddenly she comes back in his life, lonely and restless while her marriage is foundering on the rocks of infidelity.

Dirk is no fool. He knows what he wants and he takes it. But then all hell breaks loose when Veronica’s husband is found dead.

Veronica will be booked on suspicion of murder, but Dirk knows better. Of everyone in this world, HE knows that she is incapable of murder, even though everyone knows she hates her husband.

Despite the belief of all her country club friends, Dirk is the only one who believes Veronica’s story, and it is up to him to prove her innocence—or her guilt …

IC: Summer can do that to you, endless hot steamy nights in the valley … long, lonely nights with nothing more than a bottle of Jack Daniels and a tall glass of ice to keep you cool … at midnight the office is dark and hot … the night is sultry and languid … the low fan above is squeaky and whirls noisily … the atmosphere is so thick that you could slice it with a butter knife … the moon shines so starkly through the rattling metal blinds … just when you’re ready to slug down that last drink and slink off to bed …

“Fuck! I hate this shit!” Dirk grunted deeply, glancing at the old yellow newspaper in his hands. God! She was so beautiful then … Pfffttt! She was beautiful still! Who the fuck am I kidding? He looked at the old tattered copy of the Times. Their smiling faces at the country club, captured by a photographer who just happened to be there at the time. He could see his old golf bag standing in the corner, her jacket tossed casually over the back of her chair. Hell, they were so in love back then that nothing seemed to matter, not one fucking thing. She had ordered a Tom Collins and he had ordered a beer. Other than the steward no one would remember that … why did he? Why now?

Well, fuck! Just an hour before she had stumbled into his office, her shadow falling long over his desk, her smoky voice calling out, “Excuse me, detective, but can you help a poor girl out?”

Dirk had been nailed to his chair. His eyes examined her critically. At thirty Veronica Chase seemed as lovely to him as when she had been his teen-aged sweetheart. She was tall and shapely with a bust still as firm and a stomach just as flat as it had been in high school. Her hair was the same strawberry-blonde and her golden tan skin still as creamily smooth. Mmm! And a good deal of the latter was visible when she sat opposite in his guest chair, for she was dressed in the standard summer evening garb of a light halter dress, bare legs, and sandals. Glancing up, she caught his appraising gaze falling on her.

“Are you admiring or disapproving?” she asked sardonically.

“Admiring,” Dirk said with a grin. “You’ve always had the prettiest legs in Runyon City.”

“Thank you, sir. If I were standing, I’d curtsey.”

“So what brings you here, Angel?” he had asked, taking in the pink flush of her cheeks and neck. “Debts? Deadbeats? Your worthless husband cheating on you?”

Her expression had told him everything and the last word out of his mouth came back to sting him to the core.

“What can I do?” she had asked. “Can you help me?” Hell, he had always wanted to help her … shit, he would have done anything for her … and he did. “Give me a cigarette?”

Dirk lighted two and handed her one. After taking a drag, she grinned.

“Isn’t this scandalous,” she had said. “Supposing someone saw us here.”

Dirk thought back with a twinge of pain to the days when she had been his girl. Though there had never been a formal announcement of their engagement, it had been tacitly accepted by both of them from the time she was a fresh-faced high school freshman and he was a world-minded junior that someday they would marry. Insofar as he was concerned, there had been no change in their future plans when he went off to Notre Dame and she went to Bryn Mawr. It had been a complete shock to him when, in her sophomore year, she suddenly eloped with a twenty-five-year-old Philadelphia law clerk.

When Veronica had quit school and brought her new husband home to live with her parents, the local gossips had a field day. Since Bruce Chase’s Philadelphia antecedents were never mentioned either by him or his in-laws, it was automatically assumed that he came from a money-less and socially unknown family, which in turn led to the automatic conclusion that he had married Veronica for her family’s wealth.

Of course, this was the automatic conclusion if any outsider who wasn’t known to be a millionaire had married her, for the Runyons were not only the oldest, but also the richest family in Runyon City. Veronica was the great-granddaughter of old Cyrus Runyon, who had founded the city in 1850 and had made a fortune in real estate. The tradition-conscious community felt the same vested interest in her that it felt in the Memorial Park that her grandfather had donated to the city. It was generally felt that she had no business marrying outside one of the other old families of the town.

The gossip that Bruce Chase was nothing but a fortune hunter had been reinforced when Veronica’s father, Arthur Runyon, had bought his new son-in-law a junior partnership in a local law firm. The local I-told-you-so group drew some satisfaction from the fact that he had never developed more than a mediocre practice which couldn’t begin to pay for the scale on which the couple lived.

The gossips had also done the inevitable counting they always do after a runaway marriage. They were extremely pleased when the bride gave birth to a son just eight months after the marriage. Actually this had lessened the hurt that Dirk Marshall had felt. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that there had been a more compelling motive than mere fickleness, which caused Veronica to marry another man so suddenly. But all that seemed to matter little, now that she sat across his desk from him, her breath and her crossed legs almost too much for him to ignore.

“I’m not worried,” Dirk answered with a dishonest but detached grin. “You’re the one who mentioned scandal.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly the place for a married woman to be seen tête-à-tête with an ex-boyfriend.”

She had a point. Though they were in his office and it was late on a sultry summer evening, no one of any consequence would have any idea that she was here. Yet her nearness and their relative isolation began to have an effect on him. A trifle self-consciously he crushed out his cigarette after two puffs.

“Maybe it would be more decorous if we were to meet in a more public place during the day.” He spat out the words but hoped she wouldn’t read too much into them.

Carefully she stepped out her own cigarette and exhaled curtly. “Well … maybe I’d better start hunting for someone to help me … again.” But for an excruciating moment she made no move to rise either.

For that long moment they stared at each other. She sat facing him, her left shoulder tilted toward him, the full swell of her breasts suspended alluringly in his sight. Slowly, she reached out across the distance of his desk to lightly touch his cheek with her fingers. Did he pull her toward him, or did she pull him toward her? Whatever … in the next moment, he had swung her around the desk and into his arms and he was crushing her to him savagely. Her lips fell against his and he felt her tongue thrust into his mouth.

Dirk was not conscious of undoing the hook, but suddenly her halter dress was slipped off and tossed onto his desk. Her back was arched and her plump breasts, snow white in comparison to her suntanned shoulders and stomach, thrust upward inches from his face. Burying his face between them, Dirk ran his palm across one nipple, then the other, feeling them harden beneath his touch. Veronica emitted a soft little moan. He was conscious of removing her silken panties and flinging them aside.

“Don’t,” she said in a hoarse whisper, at the same time raising her hips to make it easier for him to remove the French cut dainties, leaving her stark naked. She remained motionless in his lap, staring at him glassily as he pushed down his trousers and shorts. Then they were in each other’s arms, their bodies working together and their breath coming faster and faster, their profane words coming more urgent and harsher until both their bodies stiffened in an excruciating spasm, and then went limp.

“So,” Dirk asked once they had regained their breath and dressed and settled back into their respective chairs. “To what do I owe you the honor?”

“I think that my husband is cheating on me,” Veronica had said, matter of factly, like someone describing how his or her Desoto sedan needed a tune-up. She pulled out a cigarette and dangled it tantalizingly before him.

Dirk had lit her cigarette and told her that he would follow up on her husband for her. And he watched her stand up and stroll confidently from his shabby third floor walkup office. God! I am such a fucking sap! he thought, but as he looked down at the old newspaper with their young and innocent picture, and felt the warmth of her sex still tingling on his recently unemployed manhood, he could feel Veronica’s pull. Jesus, she knows me all too well!

 

[chanaud]

Veronica eased her powder blue 49’ Cadillac convertible to a red light. Her teal polka dotted scarf kept her hair in place, accentuating her perfect oval face. She pulled a gold lipstick case and proceeded to paint her lips with bright red.

Beep Beep

A car roared next to her. Her sunglasses fell to reveal cool blue eyes.

“What cha doin’ babe?” The dark curly hair young man hung his head out the window..

“Going home to my husband.” Veronica answered coolly.

Throwing his head back, the man laughed. Red lips split into a wide smile. “I have to go home sometime, Billy.”

“Yeah…sure. A dame like you shouldn’t have a husband.”

“What are you saying, Billy?”

The stoplight turned green. Angry honks were heard from behind. Veronica and the bronzed Billy continued their conversation, ignoring them.

“Care for another game?”

Veronica mulled over the idea. She can still feel Dirk’s cum seeping out of her pussy. Then she remembered the dinner guests due to arrive at her house in less than two hours.

“Can’t darlin’. Why don’t you come over tonight?”

“What? Moi the lowly help allowed at the Chase mansion?” His eyes narrowed. “I have a real job, doll. Don’t think for a minute I’ll serve drinks for ya.”

“Of course not, Billy. You’ll come as my guest. I’ll introduce you around as my tennis instructor. It isn’t far from the truth, after all.”

White teeth gleamed brilliantly in response. “Dinner’s at 8. Call the house, the maid will give you directions.”

“Don’t need to, doll. I know the way.” He laughed as he raced on.

Veronica pulled into the manicured driveway leading to a great English tudor house, Vans lined the circular drive, blocking her way into the garage. People were busy carrying trays, oversized cartons, and bulky black boxes of instruments for dancing afterwards. She parked the car and tossed the keys towards a young man running up to her. He caught it in mid air. Without acknowledging anyone, she walked into the house coolly..

Bruce wasn’t home yet. His brown felt hat wasn’t hanging on the hat stand. It’s just as well, she thought. She needed time to shower and change. Perhaps, he would be a no show for this party tonight, Veronica hoped. After all, it wasn’t for them. This dinner party was a favor for her father, which was also a favor for the governor, who wanted to meet the developers that just bought fifty acres on the outskirts of town. The idea sounded ludicrous . Bruce will show. He won’t miss an opportunity to rub elbows with a title.

She bounded up the winding stairway. The phone rang, freezing her step.

“Marla, get that will you?”

“I can’t, missus. The chef needs another hot plate for the main course.”

Nodding, Veronica retreated her steps. Picking up a pink princess phone, she tucked a lock of strawberry blonde her ears. “Chase residence.”

“Veron…I must see you.” A masculine voice whispered through the earpiece.

Veronica glanced around the empty room. “I told you never to call here, Lenny.”

“I must see you.”

“Lenny, it’s over. Do you hear me? Over. Don’t ever call here again!” She finished with a loud slam of the phone.

Without glancing around, Veronica bounded up the stairs again. From the doorway, a dark shadow turned…..

 

[Miltone]

Dirk Marshall

Rubbing together the crisp bills Veronica had given him as a “retainer” where they lie burning in his pocket, Marshall knew that it wouldn’t take long to get the goods on Bruce Chase. A few phone calls to some old chums in the business and a few words with a couple of needy ex-employees of the Runyon family would probably tell him all he needed to know. Maybe a night or two trailing Chase with a trusty old Kodak would seal his fate.

Marshall sighed. But really, what’s in it for me? Ronnie will never be mine again, he thought. Her persuasive little dalliance with him was probably already forgotten as she flitted on to her next social engagement. Besides, no matter their past history, she had grown so out of his league. It was one thing to have been young and innocent high school sweethearts—you just don’t know any better—but it was another thing to be a jaded, washed up shamus whose lofty dreams had been flushed out about the time he flunked out of law school, now drifting off the rocks of another failed relationship and still carrying a torch for a gorgeous, coveted beauty who has her pick of available men.

He stood at the window and watched as Veronica drove off in her sweet blue Caddy convert. Everything always seemed to come up roses for her and smell twice as sweet. Runyon City’s favorite social butterfly had the world on a string and she knew it. But with everything she has, she also has a philandering husband. Marshall snapped the blinds shut and turned his thoughts to Bruce Chase. Bruce Chase was a job … a job meant money … money means we get to eat, he thought. Maybe we’ll even order pie tonight.

Marshall spent the next 24 hours making those phone calls to his pals and meeting with a couple of disgruntled Runyon family employees. One in particular, Mercedes Santiago, sang a particularly rueful tune. As she sat in her dinky and hot but tidy and proud apartment down on Fisher Street, she mopped at her sweaty forehead and spoke forthrightly. She was an older short squat Mexican woman that Marshall remembered from a dozen years before as short but not quite so broad in the beam. Her dark hair was gracefully streaked with threads of silver and a few strands were matted around her face from the stifling heat.

“I know the Mister Chase he is how you say … fooling around? He all the time is coming home late from the office, making phone calls late at night and leaving without telling the Mrs. Chase.”

“So did you ever hear him mention a name, or find a phone number or address laying around … particularly after one of those phone calls?” Marshall asked pointedly.

Mercedes looked straight back at him, her dark eyes cold with a steely distaste for the man they were talking about.

“You know, Mr. Dirk, I never like him … he is no good for the Mrs. Chase, but she no listen to me. He don’t spend time with his son like a man should. He say that I steal from them something which I never do anytime … I work for the Mrs. Chase when she was little girl … you remember … you two made such a happy couple … I know the old Mrs. Runyon would have been so happy to see you two married …”

“Yeah … yeah, Mercedes,” Marshall said sharply cutting her off. “But that was a long, long time ago and we were talking about Mr. Chase.”

“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” Mercedes said with a distinct hiss in her high pitched voice. “The Mr. Chase talk real quiet on the phone, but one time he tell me that he need a fresh drink and I bring it him and he is whispering ‘but Lydia, sweetie this,’ and ‘but Lydia, honey that,’ so I think that her name, no?”

“You’re probably right about that,” Marshall remarked. “Anything else?”

“Well, this one time he leave a pack of matches on his nightstand from the Bombay Club, you know that kind of place is no good for high-class married man like the Mr. Chase.”

“I know, Mercedes,” Marshall said, remembering the place down on the corner of Howard and Main on the south end of town, a joint the cops were constantly closing down but would always seem to open up when nothing short of a felony could be proved. Maybe this little Lydia was a floozy who worked at the club. It wouldn’t take much to twist Marshall’s arm to check out that scene.

“I hope this help you Mr. Marshall,” Mercedes added. “I remember you from when you a boy and the Mrs. Chase in love with you, no? And I want help the Mrs. Chase so much.”

“So do I, Mercedes. So do I.” Marshall wound up his interview with a final question. “If I was going to look for Mr. Chase around this time of the afternoon, where might I look for him?”

“Oh, you find him at the country club. He always there drinking with his friends. He call from there many times saying he no be home for dinner and the Mrs. Chase cry a while and then leave without touching the dinner. So sad, so sad …”

“Maybe we can do something about that,” Marshall said and got up. He fingered a sawbuck and pulled it from his pocket. “Here’s a little something for you,” he said offering the greenback to the woman.

“Oh, no, Senor … I no take your money,” the woman said, trying to wave his offer away.

“Please,” Marshall insisted, thrusting the bill into her hand and folding his palms snuggly around her fingers. “You’ve been a great help. Get yourself that special little hat you’ve had your eye on.”

The older woman smiled broadly and nodded before her eyes lowered to the floor. It wasn’t until he had slipped behind the wheel of his noisy old Merc that Marshall decided that his next call was at the Rexford Bay Country Club. The doorman was an old high school chum and waved him into the member’s parking lot with a grin. The barroom was sleek and modern, lots of booked mahogany and polished stainless steel trim. The tables were filled with lots of folks playing the 19th hole so he took an open seat at the bar and surveyed the room. No sign of Bruce Chase, but to his unpleasant surprise he was seated next to Barney Master, a tough-ass police inspector. Master was a burly, moon-face man with a perpetual dour expression that concealed a particularly shrewd mind.

“Since when are they letting the lowlifes in here these days?” Master remarked when he glanced over at Marshall. “I thought this was a class joint.”

“I was about to ask that same question,” Marshall shot back.

“It’s a long story,” Master said, turning back to his stout glass filled with strong smelling whiskey. “But I’m here for pleasure. This is Dr. Herring from the coroner’s office. He was nice enough to invite me this afternoon.” The thin reedy man with horn rims seated on Master’s other side waved to Marshall, then extended his hand.

“Nice to meet you Doctor,” Marshall said, taking the Doctor’s cold limp hand in his. “Marshall, Dirk Marshall. Have we met before?”

“Perhaps,” replied the Doc. “You visit the morgue often?”

“As seldom as I can get away with it,” Marshall chuckled.

“So what brings you here, business or pleasure?” Master asked.

“You know about the state of my golf game so you know it’s not pleasure,” Marshall replied. “Just trying to get a taste for how the other half lives these days.”

“That sounds like you, Marshall, always on the case, whether it pays or not,” Master said eyeballing Marshall closely.

Marshall didn’t think that his threadbare glen plaid looked all that bad, and he did feel a bit envious seeing the esteemed police inspector dressed in a fine pair of slacks and finely tailored shirt. When the bartender came around, Marshall ordered bourbon and the Doctor kindly offered to put it on his tab.

“Thanks, pal. So what’s the latest from around the station house?” Marshall asked the inspector, wanting to change the subject. “Any leads on the cat burglar?” Master shot him a nasty look.

“No leads … no nothing,” Master spat out. It was easy to see that this latest crime spree to strike Runyon City was a dicey subject to the lead investigator. The burglar had been terrorizing the residents of Runyon City’s finest neighborhoods by breaking into homes while the inhabitants were sleeping.

“But I thought since he tried to slice and dice the Formby widow the last time that something would have turned up,” Marshall said. His comment caught the eye of the Doc. A few nights before sweet old Agnes Formby had woken up and surprised the burglar sneaking in her bedroom. He had struck at her with some kind of weapon, which had left a deep gash in her shoulder.

“So did we,” Master grunted. “Even though he dropped the loot and ran off we didn’t pick up a single print. It was so dark the old broad couldn’t describe either the attacker or the weapon.”

“The kind of wound makes me think it might have been a hatchet or a short-handled ax,” added the Doc.

The burglaries had so far been confined exclusively to the Rexford Bay area, Runyon City’s wealthiest neighborhood, where the beachfront homes of the rich were strung along the shore of the lake on both sides of the country club. Since the victims included some of the town’s most influential people, the pressure on the police department to capture the culprit quickly was overwhelming to say the least.

“My take is that you boys had better find this cat and soon,” Marshall commented. “The residents are as nervous as a fire eater with palsy.”

“You’re telling me?” Master shot back. “Hell, there’s been such a run on gun permits, the brass had to pull a man off the streets just to handle all the paperwork. All we need is for some trigger happy homeowner to pull a .38 out of the nightstand and we’ll really have problems.”

“So you found nothing on the loot, no other clues?” Marshall asked, turning on his stool to face the inspector. He felt the soft rush of air as the patrons seated on the other side got up to leave. Master just shook his head. “So how’s he do it without being seen, at least up till now?”

“Not sure exactly, but it seems that he climbs up to the roof and shimmies down a drain pipe somehow and enters the second floor. At the Formby place he used a length of rope tied to a vent pipe on the roof. Maybe he has elsewhere but always removed it before he left … except this time when he panicked.”

“Hope you catch him so that the residents around here can quit taking tranquilizers,” Marshall cracked.

“We sure do,” said a voice behind Marshall. Apparently someone had taken the seat next to him so he took a swig of bourbon and turned to see who owned the voice. He almost spat out the strong, aged whiskey. It was Bruce Chase, a wiry man in his mid 30s, a well-muscled body and a darkly handsome face creased by a constant smile. His dark eyes gave Marshall a heavy once over. “Knowing that there may be someone skulking around your house at night has givens the whole neighborhood the jitters.”

Marshall and Chase eyed each other closely.

“You two know each other?” Master asked to break the uneasy spell.

“Yeah, we’re familiar with each other,” Marshall answered. He hadn’t seen Chase in several years other than in occasional newspaper stories about charity events. Just seeing his rival reminded Marshall of Veronica, and how she had visited him the evening before and left her scented calling card. Just knowing that this man had stolen the only woman he had ever loved sent a cold chill up Marshall’s spine.

“So how’ve you been, still beating the bushes along the divorce trail?” Chase asked.

“As long as cheating husbands are as plentiful as nickels in a newspaper coin box, I’ll make a living,” Marshall replied. He could see a subtle darkness streak through Chase’s eyes and could read the score. This game would be over soon.

“Too bad someone as sharp as you couldn’t get a respectable job with the police,” Chase growled. “That burglar would be history by now.”

“Easy up, boys let’s not let this personal thing between you two get out of hand,” Master commented, placing a meaty hand on Marshall’s shoulder.

Master knew both men and their common history was something of a town legend.

“Don’t worry, Barney,” Marshall said before slugging down the rest of his drink. “I’m on my way out. Thanks for the drink,” he said to the Doctor. “See you around boys,” he said to the rest and strode from the barroom.

He hated to leave any barroom after only one drink but knew a second might blow any chance he had of getting a fat payoff from The Mrs. Chase. Just the thought of her sent a twinge to his loins. It hadn’t been 24 hours since he had been with her and all he could think of was the hot press of her kiss and the firm heft of her plump breasts and the damp clench of her tight sex. I’ll get the goods on that fucker, so help me! Then he climbed into his ratty old Merc and wheeled back to his office. The bourbon there was cheaper and plentiful.